


The Choice Unspoken

by The_Capricious_One



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Secret Relationship, look the opportunities to make out with 2 people??? at once??? could not be denied, vulcan handsex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 09:58:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Capricious_One/pseuds/The_Capricious_One
Summary: Keeping a relationship under wraps in a small and gossipy space ship isn't easy, but they have their ways.





	The Choice Unspoken

Sometimes, Archer swears that the hardest part of his job isn’t the tough snap-second decisions he’s forced to make, or the volatile and delicate diplomacy with new nations, but the  _ waiting.  _ They’ve been at a stately warp 4.5 for six days, and the boredom is killing him. He drums his fingers on the armrest of the Captain’s chair. As Captain, he’s technically not tied to the bridge during his shift; rank gives him the privilege of going wherever he’s useful. But it strikes him as unfair to have his crewmates stuck on the bridge for their entire shifts while he stretches his legs, so he tries to put in an appearance whenever possible. Even if nothing is happening. Nothing has happened for days.

He tries not to look too long out the viewport at the stars streaming past. Too much of that, and the continual motion of objects moving too fast to properly see gives him a headache. So he’s left to watch panels and crew members instead. It takes all of his willpower not to watch T’Pol the whole time. They’re in public. He can’t be that indiscreet.

The frustrating thing is, they’re  _ always  _ in public. A Captain must be available to his crew at all times. His privacy is nonexistent; crewmembers are in and out of his quarters at all hours, and if, goodness forbid, he were to be caught in Trip or T’Pol’s quarters—well. Archer’s the first one to admit that his fraternization with not one, but  _ two _ crew members is more than enough to disqualify him for the Captain’s chair he’s so determinedly sitting on. He couldn’t even argue against the charge of being unfit for duty, not when he knows his regs and ignores them anyway. So. He stifles the affection he feels for them when other crew members are around. He lives with the strict limits imposed by living in a glorified fishbowl. And he’s careful with his eyes.

Not that he doesn’t look. Just—briefly. His face as neutral as ever. The graceful line of her neck as she bends over the readout display. The soft curve of her cheek in profile. She looks up then, meets his gaze. She glances deliberately at the door to the Ready Room, and back at him. The fingers of her left hand flutter against the comconsole.

He surveys the room again, maintaining the same look of casual boredom that he’s had on his face for well over an hour now. Internally, his heart picks up. T’Pol has taught him a thing or two about Vulcan culture, and though her gesture passes below most Humans’ perception, the flirtation is unmistakable to him. No one is watching. With the limited data coming in from the sensors at warp, the bridge is engaged in personal projects—Hoshi is studiously processing data from their previous planet. Malcolm, on the other hand, has the glassy eyed look that says he’s daydreaming again.   

“T’Pol, there’s a matter I want to discuss with you.” He jerks his head towards the door. “In the Ready Room. Malcolm, you have the helm.”

T’Pol rises smoothly, joining him in the Ready Room. She keys the lock behind them. 

“I am running an analytics program which will take 29.1 minutes to complete. Our mean time per conversation of ship business is 14.7 minutes, so I suspect our absence will not arouse suspicions for 18.2 minutes at least. The odds of an emergency at this time are acceptably small.” She looks him over then, her eyes intense. “The sound of your fingertips tapping against your chair was—distracting.” She holds out her hand to him.

He smiles in fond memory. “I remember how demure you were at first,” he says, sliding his fingertips over the back of her hand, gentle as a shuttle kissing docking clamps. T’Pol shivers. “Offering me only two fingers to kiss, even in private.”

T’Pol curves her thumb around his hand, massaging a point that makes even Archer, with his insensitive Human hands, melt. “I wanted to maintain what was left of my dignity. You—make that difficult.”

Archer maps her hand by touch, every centimeter. A green flush creeps into her cheeks, and Archer wrestles the treacherous line of thought that says,  _ consequences be damned, _ to follow the blush down and strip her on the Ready Room table and touch all of her without rushing. He limits himself to pressing a kiss into her collarbone instead, and murmuring, “I’m no Vulcan. I love seeing you lose control,” into her skin. She shudders under him as if he had said something incredibly salacious, and her hand moves more desperately against his. He interlaces their fingers, bringing them palm to palm. A small moan slips from her at that, and he’s seen nothing in the stars as beautiful as this, T’Pol flushed a deep green, eyes glazed, breathing raggedly as she grinds her palm against his, so close to satisfaction that her rhythm stutters—

There’s a chime at the door. Archer’s so focused that he can’t place the sound at first. They both freeze. Embarrassment and frustration flash across T’Pol’s face, plain as day. Archer’s the first to make a move, stumbling for the Ready Room table and scooting his chair under it to hide his obvious erection. T’Pol takes an extra second to follow his lead, legs unsteady, choosing a seat with its back to the door. Already she has begun to control the vasodilation in her face, the flush lessening, but the green tint lingers. There’s nothing to be done for Archer’s Human skin.

Archer verbally unlocks the door and says, “Come in.”

Trip strolls in, a dataPADD of specs held loosely by his side. “Cap’n, I’ve got something to—“ he takes stock of the scene, and a slow smirk spreads across his face. “Well now. I’m not interrupting something, am I?” he says, and keys the lock behind him. T’Pol is not so indelicate as to cover her face with her hands, but her face twists just enough to indicate she wants to. Archer feels no such embarrassment. With both of them present, not only are they granted some freedom from the crewmembers’ suspicions, but a rare gift: both his loves in the same room, where he doesn’t have to pretend to the contrary. He bears a grinning Trip backwards until Tripp’s back is pressed against the wall and kisses him, hands gentle on either side of his stupidly handsome face. Tripp just laughs and pulls him closer, kissing him hard enough that their teeth click. He shoves a thigh between Archer’s legs and Archer has a fleeting thought of  _ really? in the  _ **_Ready Room?_ ** before he reflects, well, it’s not like they have anywhere else, and grinds into him. He feels T’Pol press against his back, her body heat scorching him through his clothes, and he reaches his hand back to her blindly, fingers interlacing with hers. Against his side he can feel Trip do the same.

Jonathan Archer isn’t a man prone to doubting his own decisions. And in moments like these, he knows exactly why he cannot doubt this one.

 


End file.
